“Do you know who killed Sir Philip Clevedon?” the old lady demanded.
“Yes,” I said, “I do know who killed Sir Philip Clevedon, and before this evening is out I shall probably tell you.”
“Has this—this other business anything to do with it?” the old lady asked.
“Everything to do with it,” I replied. “But, now, let us straighten this out first. I will tell you what I know as fact, and Thoyne can supply any embroidery that may be necessary. In the first place, Miss Grainger—that is Robert Grainger’s daughter—and Thoyne were in the hospital at Bristol at the same time. They left within a few days of each other, Thoyne first and the girl a day or two later. That is fact. Then comes a long interval. When next Mary Grainger is seen she is living in Long Burminster with her baby girl. Whether Thoyne was actually keeping her then, I don’t know, but after her death he paid her debt to her landlady and all the funeral expenses, and since then he has paid two pounds a week for the child.”
“Not much if she is his daughter,” the old lady interposed bitingly.
“But a good deal if she isn’t,” I retorted.
“You mean you think she is.”
“I don’t mean anything except what I have told you, I deal only in facts.”
“But why should he keep a baby girl if she isn’t his daughter?”
“If that is a conundrum—”